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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29011569">You'll Love Me At Once</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LSPrincess/pseuds/LSPrincess'>LSPrincess</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Gotham (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ed Uses His Words, First Kiss, Love Confessions, M/M, Mild Breathplay, Past Child Abuse, Post-Episode: s05e11 They Did What?, Season/Series 05, Unresolved Sexual Tension</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:40:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,247</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29011569</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LSPrincess/pseuds/LSPrincess</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“I have dreams about you,” Ed blurted, nodding his head slowly, and damned if Oswald didn’t get whiplash.</em>
</p><p><em>Luck slap me in the face, he thought, gawking and fighting his persistent blush.</em><br/>-<br/>Ed comes to Oswald in the night with many things to say, a theme to communicate, and very little tact in doing so.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>123</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>You'll Love Me At Once</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm back from the dead again. Whilst walking, I have a tendency to slip into ditches that fall all the way to writer's block Hell, but I'm back</p><p>I have a lot of WIPs right now that I hope to post in <em>nearish</em> future. I had to sort them by priority just so I'd keep track of them.</p><p>This one wasn't too high on the list, but it was the one closest to being done, so I'm sorry if it feels a little rushed. I hope you enjoy either way!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for Oswald to wake up to incessant knocking on his bedroom door. It had become something of a nightly disturbance in his mayoral years — the harsh rap of knuckles on wood, persistent and rhythmic, always in a window from two to four a.m. It used to be the most restful period Oswald could find in his cautious nature.</p><p>It deviated from time to time, as all human impulses do, but it never delayed quite long enough for Oswald to designate it “intermittent” or “unpredictable.” Sometimes, he’d even lie awake until three a.m., just for the sake of its inevitability.</p><p>That had been years ago, though, when the sun still shone on Gotham City. Years before the bridges, years before the war, before Oswald could definitively (and with no small amount of despondency) determine the whole right side of his body a great, pain-in-the-ass liability. It had been years ago when he still spent his days dreaming of (and spent his nights dreaming <em> in </em> <em> ) </em> his father’s mansion.</p><p>Years ago, when he had <em> shared </em> that inheritance with one of the most remarkable people he’d ever met in his life.</p><p>And because of that great length of time — from the first night he’d awoken with his hand clutched around an icy knife handle to answer the knock at his door, to the day when it all had so abruptly <em> stopped </em>— it came as somewhat of a shock to be roused in the deepest part of Oswald’s sleep to hear knocking on his bedroom door.</p><p>For a moment, he presumed himself still asleep, dreaming of a simpler time. In brevity, he might have convinced himself of such had there not been a dull, persistent ache in his right eye and stiffness to his joints that only came with years of exhausting turmoil and age.</p><p>His next solution was that he’d risen to answer a call that had never occurred in the waking world, and that he was sitting, slightly elevated on his elbows, waiting for a knock that would only be found in the blissful memories that greeted him in dreams.</p><p>This, too, was crudely disproven when another sterner, stronger, more <em> desperate </em>knock lightly rattled the door. In worried preparation to answer it, Oswald pushed himself into a full sitting position.</p><p>There was a noticeable disparity between the nature of this knock and those of the past; one that Oswald lent his utmost attention to. This knock, though still notably rhythmic and performed by a familiar hand, had an air of urgency Oswald was not used to. In the past, Ed had roused him with claims of “urgent” business, but that always proved to be nothing more than a nagging thought of possibility, and one that Ed — in his distinct way of sleep-deprivation and thousand-mile-a-minute thoughts — had fretted far too much over.</p><p>This knock, with its ever-increasing tempo, <em> still </em> proved to be different. Even though Oswald strained with all the power of his good ear, he could find nothing but pure, bleeding-heart <em> desperation </em> in its pattern.</p><p>And so, heaving out a sigh and rubbing the excess fog of sleep from his remaining eye, he prepared himself for the confrontation to come.</p><p>“Ed?” he called, careful to speak with a tone of uncertainty.</p><p><em> “Yes, </em>Oswald,” Ed almost sobbed from the other side, gasping with relief and relenting his knocking. “I-I’m sorry, I just—I-I just wanted…May I come in?”</p><p>Nodding in self-directed affirmation (a way to say, <em> Yes, you </em> are <em> accepting this), </em> Oswald called drearily, “Of course.”</p><p>Almost immediately, Oswald’s door swung open, and he found himself even further blinded by the beam of light Ed was shining in his face.</p><p><em> “Ed,” </em> he groaned, frustrated more than he was pained, grinding the heel of his hand against his eyelid, “what—”</p><p>“My father wasn’t a good man,” Ed blurted, stiff, scrambled, and off-puttingly direct.</p><p>For a long moment (in which he felt increasingly confused and <em> decreasingly </em> lucid), Oswald said nothing, mouth agape and eye searching the darkness in Ed’s general direction for some token of guidance.</p><p>“U-Um,” he finally stammered out, shifting and racking his mind for an appropriate response. “Ed, I…Elaboration?”</p><p>“He hurt me,” Ed offered, still stiff, still direct, still eerily emotionless.</p><p>“Oh,” Oswald said simply, <em> dumbly, </em> all lingering clouds of weariness effectively expelled. “Oh, Ed, I’m sorry. I’m…Do you want to—?” he began, gesturing to the cold vacancy beside him, but Ed barrelled on, ever careless and determined to spill what thoughts plagued his mind.</p><p>“It was bad. <em> He </em>was…really bad,” he admitted choppily, his icy façade finally cracking to reveal a more genuine tension — discomfort he disguised by redirecting his attention to the flashlight he was still holding and messing with the switch. “I still have nightmares about him.”</p><p>“Ed—”</p><p>“I can dream about the good times, too,” Ed interrupted again. He seemed to have settled with the switch on <em> off, </em> turning the flashlight upright to tap at the glass lens instead. “Sometimes, he wasn’t so angry. He tried to be better — I-I believe that,” he said firmly, nodding as if he had to assure Oswald of that fact. But despite that confidence, a flicker of doubt flashed across his face, strong but fleeting, and left a crack in his composure. “I…I think,” he added softly. “B-But it always comes back to the bad. And…I…It…”</p><p>“Shh, Ed,” Oswald cooed softly, having given up on his futile attempts to have Ed take a seat and instead resorting to his best means of comfort. “It’s okay. Take your time.”</p><p>It was obviously a difficult topic to discuss, and certainly, a difficult one to <em> hear </em>— especially at whatever hour of the morning it was. Nevertheless, it seemed Ed needed to say it.</p><p>Oswald could be patient if he truly tried. And at the moment, ensconced in their small window of tranquil consultation, Oswald had nothing hindering that humanity. There was nothing pressing to distract him from the severity and reality of Ed’s thoughts — no looming mayoral duties, no shipments to be confirmed, no gangs to maintain. Even the bitter shadow of Death that seemed to tail Oswald like a loyal mutt couldn’t faze him. The world was dark, and Edward Nygma stood just a few feet away, entrusting Oswald with knowledge he suspected no other soul was privy to.</p><p>Oswald thought it was beautiful, however selfish that may be.</p><p>With the time Ed had been offered, he’d taken a deep, shuddering breath, and clutched the flashlight closer to his chest.</p><p>“It…It always hurt. To wake up.”</p><p>With their prolonged exposure to the darkness, Oswald’s eye had readjusted, and he took detailed note of how Ed’s shoulders would twitch and he wouldn’t meet Oswald’s eye.</p><p>“I could still feel it.” A twitch. “How he hurt me.” Gaze flitting left and right, ever-changing, never trusting.</p><p>“How did he hurt you?” Oswald asked, as soft and reassuring as he could.</p><p>“He…With a…It’s not important,” Ed stammered, giving a firm shake of his head and bringing the flashlight down onto his open palm. “What matters is that he did it. And I hate him for it. And he haunts me.”</p><p>Oswald suspected such a thing generally would, such cruelties — those that would have ignited a bout of murderous rage in Oswald’s heart if he didn’t still have last night’s drinking and the remnants of a Vicodin dulling his senses. What replaced that rage, however, was something low and hot, charring his heart and smoking his throat with the suffocating vapors of gut-wrenching sympathy. He could think of few other times he’d wanted Ed in his arms so badly.</p><p>“Nightmares aren’t…unusual for me,” Ed pressed, wringing the neck of the flashlight like he wished it were his own. “I have them a lot. About a lot of people. And a lot of things. I-I still…sometimes get nightmares about Kristen.” A twitch. “Waking ones, too.” Gaze flitting left and right. There was something like longing in his eyes.</p><p>“Waking?” Oswald dared to ask. He felt as though he already knew the answer, but said it anyway for the sake of filling Ed’s hesitant silence — silence that dragged on in the absence of an answer, stagnant tension electrifying the air. Oswald almost fancied he could see the sparks.</p><p>Clearing his throat and composing himself, Ed looked up, at last, to meet Oswald’s eyes, stiff and statuesque, clasping his hands in front of him. “I came to ask how your eye was doing,” he said clearly, projecting like he was speaking to an audience in the back of the house, steady and straight like he was being judged for his countenance.</p><p>“No, you didn’t,” Oswald said simply, lounging back against his nest of pillows. How, after all that, Ed thought he could change the subject so crudely, Oswald wasn’t sure.</p><p>“Does the bandage help at all?” he continued in spite of Oswald’s attempt to reroute the conversation.</p><p>“It still hurts. But it’s clean.” Oswald brushed his fingers over the texture of the cloth wrapping. “At least I trust it is.”</p><p>“Do you…want more medicine? For the pain?”</p><p>“Has it been long enough?”</p><p>“It’s four a.m.”</p><p>“Then yes.”</p><p>After a brief pause, Ed nodded, smiling tightly and ducked away into the bathroom to fetch the pills and a cup of water.</p><p>While the faucet ran, Oswald allowed himself a smile in response to Ed’s diligence. He’d always been fast to Oswald’s aid, treating the issue with a stern countenance and confident hands. Even after the grenade, when Oswald could see, even through the pain and blood, just how frightened Ed truly was, he still tried to remain professional when cleaning and bandaging it. Though Ed's lip quivered when he mopped up the blood and his hands trembled when he taped down the gauze, he was still trying to keep up that façade of a trained expert. Until then, Oswald had always assumed it was a show more for <em> his </em> comfort than for Ed’s. It seemed Ed found solace in the cool control doctors exercised. Even surgeons, with a person’s inner workings exposed to them, raw and bloody, and the scalpel in their hand that body’s undoing, they endeavored to remain indifferent. They had to.</p><p>Perhaps, Ed envied it. Emulated it.</p><p>Perhaps, it wasn’t something to smile about, soft and fond like Oswald was. Perhaps, to a sober outside eye, it wasn’t that endearing.</p><p>Oswald had never cared for sobriety, and outside eyes were voyeurs in the wrong situations.</p><p>And when Ed came in to be a physical subject for Oswald to turn that smile to, why, who couldn’t find it endearing how he blushed, gnawing at his cheek and turning his eyes to the floor.</p><p>“H-Here,” he stammered, holding out his hands to present the pill and water. “This should help.”</p><p>“As it always does,” Oswald said with a grateful nod, sipping the water and rolling the pill around in his hand.</p><p>It was a simple fidget, physical movement to exert some of the raging thoughts running amok in his head. It was not meant, by any means of preconception, to be <em> teasing. </em></p><p>However, when Oswald spared Ed a glance from the corner of his eye, it seemed that was exactly what it had become: a tease, Ed’s gaze following every slight movement of the pill, eyes dark and burning holes in Oswald’s skin. Something akin to cigarette burns, yet somehow more painful.</p><p>At a loss, Oswald murmured, “You don’t need it.” Soft and abrupt, punching a merciless hole through the thick fog of silent tension.</p><p>As quickly as he could manage without seeming spiteful, he downed the pill and drained the water, setting the cup on his nightstand and turning to rummage through the drawers.</p><p>“Here,” he said, pulling back with a bottle of Scotch cradled in his arms like something precious. “If you want it. More of a socially acceptable suppressant.”</p><p>Ed reached for it, albeit hesitantly, taking it into his own arms and treating it just as tenderly, stroking his thumb over the glass designs with careful consideration.</p><p>“I…I don’t—”</p><p>“Like liquor, I know,” Oswald said with a smile, covering Ed’s hand with his own. “But it’s…safer, I think. And the best I can do with our—” he waved a hand around the room, huffing out a dry laugh— “current state of destruction.”</p><p>Ed still hesitated, Oswald noted. Carefully, he retracted his hand, content to sit back and observe, garner what little he could about the ever-puzzling machinations of Edward Nygma’s mind.</p><p>He seemed indecisive, which didn’t come as a shock, but what lay below it (the deep, gritty truth that Oswald always dug for, wearing down his fingers and exhausting all his lies) was something that glinted like a <em> scheme. </em> A plan he was formulating as he coddled the bottle and bit the skin off his lips.</p><p>It would be exceptionally reckless to inquire about it, Oswald knew — it would very likely dispel it from Ed’s mind altogether, a sort of defensive tactic that seemed to do more harm than good in the long-run, in Oswald’s opinion. But it wasn’t his mind, and it wasn’t his scheme, and by no means did he plan to claim it as such, nor pretend that he understood it. As much as he secretly detested the thought, there were aspects of the mind of those select few people that he might never be able to understand, might never clear the rubble and polish into clarity with his bloody, filth-caked hands.</p><p>But even still, people slipped. Showed their hand. It was natural, Oswald had learned through the years. People <em> want </em> to show off, to be seen, to be hollowed out and inspected and filled again with understanding. Understanding wasn’t hard when you could deceive like Oswald — understanding wasn’t <em> necessary. </em> Just soft eyes, a gentle smile, and a reassuring tone. It filled people up as nothing else could. Sinful, really, how easy it was.</p><p>Even Ed, it seemed, slipped. Unscrewed the top of the bottle of liquor and took a sequence of breathless gulps. For <em> courage, </em> Oswald decided, scanning Ed’s movements. Alcohol was good for that.</p><p>When Ed lowered the bottle, Oswald spoke, taking his assumption and running with it. “Now, would you like to…continue with your <em> initial </em> train of thought?” he supposed, tilting his head curiously. “Tell me why you <em> actually </em> came in here?” Luck be on his side, he hoped.</p><p>“I have dreams about you,” Ed blurted, nodding his head slowly, and damned if Oswald didn’t get whiplash.</p><p><em> Luck slap me in the face, </em> he thought, gawking and fighting his persistent blush.</p><p>But Ed continued, unfazed by Oswald’s reaction or the gravity of what he’d just said. “And what’s…utterly <em> confounding </em> is that they’re rarely ever bad. And…they’re never about what you did.” He flicked his thumb against the neck of the bottle. Traced the mouth. Flicked it again. “They’re bad sometimes. I think any dream about anyone can be bad. But even then, they’re always about you…getting hurt, or being angry with me, or…Most recently, especially about…” He trailed off, opting to gesture at the bandage around Oswald’s head instead. Reflexively, Oswald reached up to touch it.</p><p>“Do you…have nightmares about me?” Ed asked meekly, shifting the bottle around in his lap.</p><p>Oswald felt light-headed. He’d expected some great admission when he prompted Ed to continue along his previous line of thought, but he hadn’t expected to be the <em> focus </em> of it. It was dizzying for all it was novel, or at least too fresh after such a long time. He hadn’t been the subject of anyone’s <em> dreams </em> for as long as he’d been alive.</p><p>He had to pause to spare the question thought, blinking spastically and mouthing wordlessly like a fool.</p><p>“Sometimes,” he settled when he was sure enough that it was true. “But I think they’re only ever…<em> inspired </em> by our…falling out.” He shot a glance in Ed’s direction, weighing any reaction he might exhibit in response to that phrasing. “I haven’t dreamt reiterations of that day for some time.”</p><p>“Good,” Ed laughed, smiling dopily like it was some great weight lifted from his chest. “That’s…I’m glad. Not glad that you dreamt reiterations <em> ever, </em> but…glad that it…” He shook his head jerkily. “I’m glad.”</p><p>“Nightmares about you getting hurt, too,” Oswald added warily, worrying the sheets between his fingers. “Really…<em> terribly </em>hurt, Ed, I…”</p><p>“I know,” Ed breathed, nodding. There was a painful grade of understanding shadowing his features. “Me too.”</p><p>He flicked the neck of the bottle again, lettings its resonance fill the silence when he could not.</p><p>“But that’s…not what confounds me,” he clarified, redirecting the conversation. “What confounds me are the <em> dreams. </em> The good ones, the…” (Oswald fancied he saw blushing pinks on Ed’s face). “The really good ones. I don’t have <em> really good </em> dreams about my dad — in <em> any </em> sense. I’ll have decent ones, ones where I can see him smile. But the nightmares outweigh the dreams. And I haven’t forgiven him for everything he did.”</p><p>He cut his eyes up to meet Oswald’s, something dark in them that made Oswald sit up just a little bit straighter.</p><p>“The dreams I have about you outweigh the nightmares. And for <em> days </em> I wondered about that — for days I told myself I didn’t want the dreams, that I’d take the visions of your pain over the visions of your…pleasure,” he said quietly, “any day.”</p><p>Oswald’s face was awash with heat at the utterance of that word — for much the same reason, he assumed, that Ed was avoiding his gaze.</p><p>“B-But I don’t. I know that now. I don’t want to see you in pain; even in my dreams. It makes me sick, Oswald, I-I can’t…”</p><p>Pale teeth tugged at rosy lips. Ed took another sip before he continued.</p><p>“I don’t hate you, Oswald. I forgive you. I want to stay like this,” he said, moving his hand gently across the space separating them. “With you. Like we used to. I don’t want to see you in pain. I <em> never </em> want to be the <em> cause </em> of that pain. I want to help you, and hold you, and do… <em> everything </em> in my dreams.”</p><p>Ed’s hand was warm when it covered Oswald’s, soft against his own callused knuckles. He could scarcely breathe for all his heart was taking up his throat, but he maintained enough cognizance to turn his hand over, to meet Ed’s palm with his own.</p><p>There was such weight to that statement, so many secrets unspoken with the whisper of that word: <em>everything.</em> <em>Everything</em> he dreamed about. Everything that <em>Edward Nygma’s </em>mind conjured up about <em>Oswald.</em></p><p>He could have been sick from the adrenaline.</p><p>“I hope that’s okay,” Ed added in a small voice, a deliberate precaution to light the way if Oswald wanted to refuse him.</p><p>He couldn’t even spell the word.</p><p>“Of <em> course </em> that’s okay, Ed. I forgive you. I-I had…so long ago. I don’t hate you. And I want to stay like this, too. You can do everything in your dreams.” With a flustered laugh, he added, “Maybe not in <em> my </em> dreams, I’m sure they’re far too—”</p><p>“I want to kiss you,” Ed confessed, strong and confident. Not like he had been with everything else, meek and stuttering. He was sure of this, as evident from his tone, and when Oswald looked up, <em> my, </em> was he close.</p><p>He might be sick from the adrenaline.</p><p>“E-Ed—”</p><p>“I have since you lost your eye. I have since the hospital. I have since the submarine. I have since you asked me to leave with you. But it…it was really strong when you lost your eye. And it hasn’t lessened up since then.” He let out a breathless laugh, almost hysterical in nature. “God, I feel like I’m dying because of it. Like I can’t breathe when I see you. I can barely talk because all my mouth wants to do is—”</p><p>“Kiss me,” Oswald gasped, gulping past the rock in his throat. “Is that what you dream about?”</p><p><em> “Yes,” </em> Ed said breathily, eyes fluttering. “Yes, that and…and…touching you.”</p><p>He was trying to smoke Oswald out of his own skin. He was sure of that now. There was a fire just over his bones, and Ed had put it there. It would only be a matter of time before his flesh began to burn — he could already feel the blaze creeping up his neck, spilling down his cheeks from the tips of ears. He already couldn’t breathe.</p><p>But he wanted it, wanted it more than anything he’d ever wanted, and so, as any person in their right mind would, he encouraged it.</p><p>“Go ahead,” he said, shocked at how soft his own voice was.</p><p>Ed’s brow twitched, a slight tremor to accompany widening eyes, dubious curiosity. “In very…inappropriate manners,” he clarified, as if <em> that </em> would <em> discourage </em> Oswald.</p><p>“Do it,” he laughed breathlessly.</p><p>
  <em> “All of it?” </em>
</p><p><em> Yes. </em> But no, Oswald corrected to himself, gnawing at his lip in order to contain his own shameless zeal.</p><p>The room was suffused with the heat they were cultivating just through words, and how poetic that was. And how comfortable that was — it was familiar for Oswald to find unprecedented power in words, but it was novel to him for Ed to exploit this power in such a way. He’d never been one to use words for their <em> erotic </em> values, and being the victim of it was fresh and far too exciting for him to think clearly.</p><p>“Maybe not…<em> all </em> of it,” he conceded. “Not right now, at least. N-Not that I’m especially <em> opposed </em> to it—”</p><p>“No, you’re right,” Ed assured with a curt nod of his head. He’d adopted a critical tone, but the usually harsh edges of it were softened by doubt and what seemed like an air of disappointment. “It wouldn’t be best for you right now with your eye and your…head.”</p><p>Oswald nodded along, taking note of the queasy ache in the right side of his head. Even when confessing his own lust, Ed maintained that professional concern for Oswald’s well-being.</p><p>It pushed him to distraction even more.</p><p>“Kiss me, then,” he reminded Ed, hating the desperation in his own voice. “Kiss me like you could do everything else you want.” And he was almost begging then, but so was Ed, with such pleading hunger in his dark eyes. It had only been a short time since Oswald had seen Ed look so helplessly desperate, but it still carried such novel weight with it. Ed was rarely helpless. Ed was rarely desperate.</p><p>He moved closer to Oswald, uncertainty blatant in his halting hesitation. His hands were trembling when they met Oswald’s face, lightly cupping his cheeks, and cold against Oswald’s flushed skin.</p><p>“I should be gentle,” he said, half-lidded eyes fixed on Oswald’s lips. “I could hurt you.”</p><p>“Don’t make me beg.” Oswald licked his lips, a brief flash of his tongue, but it stoked the fire in Ed’s eyes into a dangerous blaze.</p><p>“I should be gentle,” Ed repeated. “Your eye…your head, Oswald, I—”</p><p>“Please,” Oswald whimpered, pressing forward to brush his lips against Ed’s. “Please.”</p><p>“Don’t—”</p><p>
  <em> “Please.” </em>
</p><p>It was harsh, a clumsy, over-eager clash of their lips that pushed Oswald back against the headboard.</p><p><em> He should be gentle, </em> Oswald thought, his head swaying in protest to the collision, but Ed had swung his leg up to straddle Oswald’s blanketed body, and <em> gentle </em> was another word erased from Oswald’s vocabulary.</p><p>He brought his hands up to mirror Ed’s, tracing the sharp line of his jaw before settling below his ears. He could scratch at the cropped hairs trailing down Ed’s neck with his hands like that — he could twine his fingers through the curls at the base of his skull.</p><p>But that would stoke the fire, Oswald thought and learned from Ed’s throaty moan and the way he pressed forward like he intended to crush Oswald between him and the wall. It was soft against his fingers though, those perfect curls, and when the pressure against his chest amounted to a degree that inhibited his breathing, he supposed there were far worse ways to go.</p><p>There were times, through every hassle and hardship they’d faced, where Oswald forgot that Ed’s hands were as run red with blood as his own were — rivulets that caked in the creases of their hands and stained the skin under their fingernails. In private, Oswald used to paint over them with black just so that he wouldn’t have to see the blood every time he looked down. But the paint always chipped, and the manner of it all sparked enough gossip as it was, so he never made a true habit of it.</p><p>Oswald had never seen Ed with painted nails (though the notion was enticing) and had never noticed blood under them, either, and that, he supposed, could fog one’s perception of Ed’s lethality. It had pulled the wool over Oswald’s own eyes more than once, he loathed to admit, but with Ed’s hands against his face, his hips, his chest and neck, he wondered at the alleged absence of bloodstains. There was such obvious venom in Ed’s heart that he shook to restrain, the pressure exerted on Oswald’s neck waxing and waning in ways that bordered on erotic asphyxiation. It somehow made the kiss sweeter — every restriction fueling the flame of Oswald’s craving, and every release the blessed rain to heal the drought.</p><p>It seemed almost compulsive to grip and release, press and retract as Ed did with every sway in and out of the kiss. It was as fascinating as it was blissfully distractive, and Oswald fancied he was content to let it play out however long Ed could stand to fully restrain himself.</p><p>But fancies were fickle things, Oswald knew.</p><p>When Ed pressed forward just <em> too </em>much — crawling inside Oswald and drinking every ounce of his life, squeezing his hand so that Oswald’s tongue brushed Ed’s as a desperate, breathless twitch more than a deliberate tease — Oswald’s head gave a decisive and dizzying throb that pulsed pain through his lacerated eye socket. He urged to wince away from the internal sensation, but Ed’s hold was lasting longer than before, and his kiss was so euphoric in its invasive hunger that Oswald held out until came the inevitable recession of Ed’s tidal-wave of vicious carnality.</p><p>“If you wished to kill me,” Oswald said hoarsely, wrapping a loose hand around the wrist against his neck, “you could have foregone all that confessing.”</p><p>Ed’s eyes widened with alarm, and he drew his hand away from Oswald’s skin as if the heat of it had burned him. “Kill you? No, I-I didn’t mean—I’m so sorry, Oswald, I had no idea—”</p><p>“Neither did I,” Oswald interrupted, dancing his fingers over the blush flooding down his neck. “Erotic asphyxiation, dear? Who knew it could be so fun?”</p><p>“That’s not…” The blush on Ed’s face deepened to a color almost imperceptible in the darkness. “I’m so sorry, that wasn’t…I got carried away.” He nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose, but ducking his head to avoid Oswald’s lascivious gaze only resulted in them slipping once again. Very softly, he added, “The <em> last </em> thing I want to do is <em> kill </em> you.”</p><p>“The little death,” Oswald threw out just to spite and relished in the way Ed’s shoulders twitched and his teeth grappled for his bottom lip. “It’s probably for the best that we stop, anyway.” Pushing himself into a more appropriate sitting position, Oswald checked the tightness of his bandages in hopes they wouldn’t need laborious correction. “I might have gotten the wrong idea from your actions. I thought we settled on restraint, Eddie?”</p><p>“You enjoy this too much,” Ed said to the embroidered comforter, correcting his glasses again with a bump of his knuckle.</p><p>“Reflect on that accusation,” Oswald teased with a sly grin. Reaching forward, he claimed one of Ed’s hands again, turning it over and pressing their palms together. “I’d forgotten how big your hands are.”</p><p>Ed shrugged with disinterest, but Oswald noticed when his head shifted to watch Oswald’s movements. “You know what they say.”</p><p>“‘All the better for strangulation, my dear’,” Oswald misquoted.</p><p>“You’ll never let this go,” Ed groaned with a desperate sigh, raking his free hand through the mat of messy curls on his head. “I thought we agreed on <em> restraint,” </em> he snipped, tossing Oswald’s own tease back at him.</p><p>With one final smirk, Oswald withdrew his hands. “We did. And it’s for the best. The night is old, and as am I,” he quipped, taking note of the weak light dappling the walls of the room with a sour grimace.</p><p>Fixing himself into an elevated supine position, he prodded Ed’s obstructing form with his left foot to urge vacancy in his legroom.</p><p>Ed was quick to move, jumping off the bed and standing rigid near the door as he had earlier that night.</p><p>He looked poised to leave, eyes flitting curiously over Oswald’s face, awaiting a signal to make any move as an obedient soldier would.</p><p>“I don’t suppose you’d care to join me, would you?” Oswald asked, turning the covers down on the empty space beside him. “Or are you going to run off? You look like a poor sap at gunpoint.”</p><p>“Join you?”</p><p>Oswald smoothed his hands over the sheets. “In the bed.” He gave the mattress two pats just to make sure his intentions were known.</p><p>“Oh,” Ed said breathily, eyes widening again. Oswald had half a mind to glance around the room just to make sure no one <em> was </em> holding him at gunpoint. “Oh, I…May I?”</p><p>“My invitation was genuine,” Oswald assured him, nestling farther down into the sheets so that he was fully horizontal.</p><p>He opted to lay in silence with his eyes closed — pressing the matter, he feared, would only elevate Ed’s dubious anxiety.</p><p>He smiled when he felt the mattress dip and the sheets be tugged across his body by his bedmate.</p><p>He opened his eyes at last when all movement had ceased, and smiled wider to see Ed studying him with wide, almost puppy-like eyes.</p><p>“Would you like me to roll over?” Oswald asked softly.</p><p>Ed shook his head, his hair rustling against the pillow. “No. I like to watch you. I-I uh—it um…it helps…ground me.”</p><p>“I see.” It was a rather sobering sight, Oswald had to admit, to open one’s eyes to another pair only mere inches away.</p><p>Extending a hand to lay available in the space between them, Oswald met Ed’s eyes quizzically.</p><p>“Do you want to touch me?” he asked, flexing his fingers around the vacant air.</p><p>“Always,” Ed admitted, and gently filled the spaces between Oswald’s fingers. “Will you sleep?”</p><p>“Of course,” Oswald scoffed, nuzzling against the plush pillow under his cheek. “Will you?”</p><p>Ed furrowed his brow. “Maybe. I haven’t felt this comfortable in a long time.”</p><p>“Be careful if you do. No more dreams of your father.”</p><p>“I’d like to hope such a thing impossible given my current state.”</p><p>Heat played on Oswald’s cheeks, and he had to restrain the width of his smile.</p><p>“Dream of me, then.”</p><p>Ed’s lips pursed with a tender smile. With gentle, calculated movements, he pulled their joined hands up to his mouth and pressed a kiss against Oswald’s knuckles.</p><p>“Always.”</p>
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